In other communes a two-thirds majority vote could enforce consolidations for the whole village.

In Spain in 1857, and in Italy in 1859, education laws imposed on communes the obligation to provide elementary schools, and on parents the obligation to send their children there for at least two or three years.

At the beginning of the Second World War 45 per cent of the population lived in rural communes, defined as having fewer than 2,000 inhabitants.

Some bishops have said that offending public figures should be refused Communion, others that they should refrain from communing.

He has taken the sacrament of Communion even if he has not communed.

I could only concentrate on emotions he had aroused in me, the way he had stirred an immense desire to admire and worship and commune, and then he had slipped away again before this desire could begin to be grasped; let alone satisfied.